


What Makes a Match

by quillsandinkwells



Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-13 20:13:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9140494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quillsandinkwells/pseuds/quillsandinkwells
Summary: The marriage of Beaumont Darcy and Anne Fitzwilliam Darcy, and after, in seven parts.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Benevolent and Amiable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/134209) by [Elizabeth (anghraine)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anghraine/pseuds/Elizabeth). 



**I.** It was a love match, of course; it had to be, for on paper he could have done better. She had a title, he had the money and the prestige. Her father may have been an earl, and his father before that, but her great-grandfather was simply an upstart admiral who was in the right place at the right time. His family could trace their roots back to William the Conqueror, and before that to the d’Arcy’s in France. The _ton_ whispered behind their fans and in card rooms about her social-climbing, about his desire for that faction’s support, but of course a marriage such as this was for love. It must be.

 **II.** And so Beaumont Alexander Henry Darcy took Lady Anne Judith Fitzwilliam as his wife. An heir followed within the year—Fitzwilliam Alexander Laurence—with a series of losses afterwards. Anne was a delicate creature, prone to a persistent cough and frailty of spirit, but even so, she continued carrying children. Beaumont would say that Anne was insistent on a daughter. Anne never commented.

 **III.** It was little Fitzwilliam who first discovered his mother’s affair; at the tender age of five he did not quite understand the full situation, but he knew enough. He knew to obey his mother when she told him to keep quiet. Beaumont would learn via a letter from his mother: Bridget Darcy was an observant woman with an errant husband, and she knew an affair when she saw one. Forcing it out of Anne was not particularly difficult either.

 **IV.** When Master Fitzwilliam was twelve, Anne received a daughter and lost her life. To call Beaumont grief-stricken was inaccurate, but he felt her loss. She had been his _wife_ , after all. He doted on his children in recompense, perhaps more than was fashionable, but he had never been a man who particularly cared about those notions. If anything, it brought Fitzwilliam comfort to be at his father’s side, discussing his studies, while infant Georgiana slept in her father’s arms.

 **V.** The year Fitzwilliam went to Eton, Bridget Darcy insisted on the company of her son and granddaughter in London. She later packed said-son off to a friend’s estate, citing “Some time with friends will do you good, my boy”, and claimed possession of her darling Georgiana. She had never liked Anne—she always knew there was something off about that girl, but Beaumont was her darling, and he got what he wanted—but by the heavens, she loved the grandchildren Anne gave her. That Lady Keatts, however; she was a good girl. And if she _happened_ to be the young sister-in-law of Beaumont’s friend…well, that’s just happy circumstance.

 **VI.** Master Fitzwilliam was thirteen and Miss Darcy barely a year when Lady Keatts became Lady Darcy. Beaumont...well, if Anne had been a love match, he was not sure what to call his wife, for they were much more _intense_ than he and Anne had ever been. There was _more_. It took his children time to adjust—Fitzwilliam especially, who finally began to make nice after two years, an extensive late-night chat, and the revelation that his father had forgiven his mother—but eventually harmony was reached.

 **VII.** The _ton_ whispered behind their fans a bit, as they are apt to do, about a marriage so hastily after Lady Anne’s death, but they soon put it behind them. The more tantalizing gossip—like _social-climbers_ —was more entertaining that a widower’s marriage to a younger, and perfectly respectable, young lady. Besides, everyone could see it was a love match.

**Author's Note:**

> Just two quick things:
> 
> First, when I read "Benevolent and Amiable" my brain started turning, and this actually isn't the only piece to happen--the other one is still too rough, however. Fitzwilliam is a difficult boy to capture.
> 
> Second, Beaumont's name came from the fact that Fitzwilliam is named after his mother's side. Since a lot of fanon tends to stick this as a Fitzwilliam family tradition, I decided to turn it on its head and stick this one on the Darcy's.


End file.
